Quote Originally Posted by ChrisL View Post
I've had Tinnitus since birth or shortly thereafter. . . It's something I have learned to live with and try not to focus on.

Does anyone else have Tinnitus, and if so, when did it start, what does it sound like to you? How is your hearing otherwise?
Hi Chris,
I just found this thread. My tinnitus started in the Fall of 1988 when I was 35 years old. Twenty-two years later, I have not gone one day without it. Often it's muted, like a large symphony orchestra softly tuning up before a performance. It often changes in quality, tone and volume.

For three days and nights in 1993, I experienced the sound of a nonstop freight train roaring through my head. One night a few years later I was woken in the wee hours of the morning by a sound that could only be described as a 5,000 psi air line that carried away.

Back when it first began and I realized the noise was "all in my head," it just didn't seem like a big deal. It as there, that's all. People who live in major cities rent apartments alongside elevated commuter trains and they adapt to the constant noise quite well. I suppose that's what I did as well.

I had a progressive bilateral hearing loss that likely began some time in 1979 and continued until I became profoundly deaf in 1995. The worst of my tinnitus (so far) happened during the last two years of my hard of hearing life but since 1995 it's pretty much been the same as it was from '88 to '93 so I can't say how the two are related.

I have friends with a condition called NF-2 who had to have life saving surgery to remove benign tumors from their hearing and balance nerves adjacent to their brain stem. In almost every case the surgery requires removal of the hearing nerves too, leaving the patient suddenly profoundly deaf. Even without hearing nerves to connect their cochleas to their brain stems, some of my friends continue to have unremitting tinnitus. Yet other theories place some causes of tinnitus in the cochlea itself. Go figger.
Namaste,
Morty -_-